Well, I'm here again, finally going to try and really commit to this journal for my own benefit as well as maybe someone else's, who might end up in the same position as me some day. ^^

A little background about me.

I grew up with a heavy reining and cowhorse background. I was born at the barn, did the leadline and peewee things and rode my ponies and all of that. My Mom trained under the same person before I was born, and I trained under her during my lifetime as well. She is incredible, someone who really gets the job done. Doesn't put up with any BS, straight to the point, and very honest. She does whatever she can to help her students. I owe her so much. She's helped me get to the point where I could start my own colts and start training a lot more independently.

Even though I grew up reining and chasing cows, my passion is with the barrel horses. I like to incorporate a lot of the reining foundation and reining work into the barrel horses, and get them broke to the point where they are willing, calm, but responsive and with a lot of power behind them.

My two main kids right now are Ruger and Selena. Ruger is named Exclusive Gunshow, by Exclusively a Pistol out of Bucks Sandance Mccue. Selena is named Leana Little by Lean With Me (Smart Little Lena) out of Chexintheexpresslane.

Selena is a miracle story. Her mom Chexintheexpresslane had an accident before she was born. They could either put her down and kill her unborn foal, or keep her alive in the sling just long enough to save Selena. They chose the latter. When she was born she was a bottle baby, and then moved to a three day eventing barn who was willing to take her to a surrogate mother. She was short enough to walk underneath her Mom's belly, and was allowed to have free run of the farm. She was like a dog. She ran up to every car that came in the driveway and greeted them. She would follow anyone around who was there. It's a miracle she is alive, and after she was started in reining and won some money she came to me and I started her on barrels. She is only 13.3hh but she is extremely powerful. She currently lives with a couple of the other barrel horses at the barn, and she laps them when they run together. I raced against one of the biggest barrel racers in the area and she held her own neck and neck until the end. She is extremely athletic and I don't know what I would do without her.

Ruger is a little less exciting. He is my four year old prospect. We traded one of our reining fillies for him in hopes of just having a trail horse for my Mom, but it became pretty obvious this horse had more to him.He is 15.2hh, a TON of horsepower. I've never ridden a horse with that much in the hind end. He's a dork, very ding-dong ish, but he's an absolute love and wants to please and loves to do work.

I am also competing for my final year in Oregon High School Equestrian. It is a wonderful program allowing Equestrian to be just like any other high school sport. We have jumping, dressage, equitation, working rancher, reining, roping, daubing, saddle seat, trail, showmanship, in hand trail and all of the gaming events. I like my horses in this environment because it rounds them. Even though this is my last year, I will be allowing my horses to be used by my younger friends in this association. This year, Selena and I will be competing in Working Rancher, Reining, Western Horsemanship (Western equitation), Barrels, Team Biwrangle, Team Penning, and Keyhole

I have various horses as well that I ride and train, so i will update about them throughout this journal. I enjoy my job and my lifestyle and wouldn't change it for the world.

SorrelHorse

01-10-2013 03:48 AM

So I'm really frustrated. I haven't been able to ride since Monday, where I normally ride every weekday. I am leaving for Portland in the morning and will be gone until Sunday which will be annoying, because that means the horses will have a week off and they tend to get a little hot.

Oh well, hoping for the best.

Army wife

01-23-2013 06:29 AM

Who did you race Selena against? I'm so curious now lol....when I was on CHSET it was Stockseat, not western horsemanship. How come your not doing more team events with her? No drill?

SorrelHorse

01-25-2013 01:24 AM

It's one of the girls who rides at Toni's...if you PM me on facebook I'll tell you but I don't want to say her name on an open forum just in case she doesn't want me to! Lolol

Yeah they changed it last year to Western Horsemanship. :lol:

Andd that's because my team only has two people....Lol

Army wife

01-25-2013 01:38 AM

Oh really? Dang, what team are you on?

SorrelHorse

01-25-2013 01:49 AM

Butte Falls! We didn't have a team my freshman year and I lived too far away to economically co-op, so I made my own! We had three our first year, only me last year, and we had four at the beginning of this year but...Teenage drama killed it. LOL

Army wife

01-25-2013 02:19 AM

haha, you motivated the start of butte falls eq team? That's awesome.

SorrelHorse

01-25-2013 03:12 AM

Yeah...I don't know if it's going to exist after I graduate though, the other girl on the team is a senior too. It's expensive and not a lot of people up there are serious enough to put in the time...

Army wife

01-25-2013 05:04 AM

That's too bad :( It really is a great program. And too bad you can't ride on another team!! We had a girl from Saint Mary's ride on our team. You would've had SO much fun on a bigger team with more to do. Did you ever get to do drill or any of the other team events?
I had the opposite problem my first two years. Crater's team was so big it was hard to get any help!! lol

SorrelHorse

01-27-2013 01:06 AM

I have done all the team events except canadian flags and drill...I was kinda upset about the drill part but I got a little bit of drill experience elsewhere so I'll live. lol